Dear TV and Movie Vampires

As mesmerized as I am by your moonlit adventures, I continue to be confused by several aspects of your behavior. Most notably:

Why do you have so much blood on your face?!

I get it. You love blood. It’s colorful, iron-licious, life-sustaining and all that… but then why does so little of it end up in your damn mouth?

When I eat french fries and gravy, it’s something of a supernatural experience for me — so I can relate. But when I finish my plate and there’s even a weency bit of gravy left — I’ll sop it up with bread. If there’s no bread, I’ll sop it up with more gravy. Bottom line — if there’s any gravy left, it’s because someone’s hidden it from me.

If blood is at least as powerful a tonic to you and your kind, then there must be some other reason why so little of it ends up in your mouth.

False Advertising?
Since when do youever lick your lips?

Perhaps you are not really vampires. Maybe you are actors that hate the taste of corn syrup and food coloring, and are content to let it run down your face.

Or perhaps your director wants to make sure the viewers know what’s happening in the scene where you bite your victim’s neck with sharp fangs (because we’d all all be really confused if we only heard drinking noises and saw red teeth and lips afterwards).

Whatever the reason — having that blood, that you were so desperately craving moments ago, run down your face instead of into your gullet, breaks the fictive spell (the thrall if you will) of the viewer. It undermines all of the brilliant writing, tension, acting and plot twists that you’ve worked so hard to achieve up to that point.